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Basel

Basel (/ˈbɑːzəl/ or /ˈbɑːl/; or less often used Basle;German:Baselpronounced[ˈbaːzəl]; French:Bâle[bɑl]; Italian:Basilea[baziˈlɛːa]; Romansh:Basilea[baziˈlɛːa]) is Switzerland's third most populous city (behind Zürich and Geneva) with about 195,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany. In 2014, the Basel agglomeration was the third largest in Switzerland with a population of 537,100 in 74 municipalities in Switzerland and an additional 53 in neighboring countries (municipal count as of 2000). The tri-national Basel metropolitan area has around 830,000 inhabitants in 226 municipalities.

Basel II, initially published in June 2004, was intended to amend international standards that controlled how much capital banks need to hold to guard against the financial and operational risks banks face. These rules sought to ensure that the greater the risk to which a bank is exposed, the greater the amount of capital the bank needs to hold to safeguard its solvency and economic stability. Basel II attempted to accomplish this by establishing risk and capital management requirements to ensure that a bank has adequate capital for the risk the bank exposes itself to through its lending, investment and trading activities. One focus was to maintain sufficient consistency of regulations so to limit competitive inequality amongst internationally active banks.

Basel II was implemented in the years prior to 2008, and was only to be implemented in early 2008 in most major economies; that year's Financial crisis intervened before Basel II could become fully effective. As Basel III was negotiated, the crisis was top of mind and accordingly more stringent standards were contemplated and quickly adopted in some key countries including in Europe and the USA.

Nightlife (Pet Shop Boys album)

Nightlife is the seventh studio album by English synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys, released on 8 October 1999 by Parlophone. After the release and promotion of their previous album, Bilingual, Pet Shop Boys started work with playwright Jonathan Harvey on the stage musical that eventually became Closer to Heaven (at one stage during the writing process, the musical was given the name of Nightlife). Pet Shop Boys soon had an album's worth of tracks and decided to release the album Nightlife as a concept album and in order to showcase some of the songs that would eventually make it into the musical.

Synopsis

The series follows Cal, a man that is half-monster and half-human. His mother was impregnated by an Auphe, a bloodthirsty creature also referred to as a "Grendel". The series begins with Cal and his brother Niko living in New York City, struggling to keep Cal's heritage a secret as they battle to survive those that would see them dead. Later novels deal more heavily with Cal's attempts to balance the dark nature of his father's race with his impulse to protect and defend others against the supernatural.

Major Characters

Caliban "Cal" Leandros

Caliban is the result of his mother mating with an otherworldly creature, a Grendel (Auphe). He is, as Thurman describes him, "half-human, half-monster, and all attitude." Cal inherited his Greek-Romani mother's raven hair, but has the pale skin of his father. Technically, Cal begins the books as 17 years old, but he was once kidnapped by the Auphe and spent two years in their home dimension called Tumulus, making him 19, since time in that placed follows different laws than on Earth.